


Plus Ça Change

by mogwai_do



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s04e17-e18 The End of Time, Light Bondage, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Telepathic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 08:15:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13360296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: How did the Master escape the Time Lock? One good turn deserves another.Mildly dubious consent because the Doctor's not awake at first, but nothing really happens until he is.





	Plus Ça Change

The Master woke to warmth and the rosy ambience of a medical room, but inside he felt cold and hollow. The drums, a constant for almost his entire life, were gone and now he felt cored like an apple. They had been a part of him for so long that their absence left him no more sane, just empty.

He lay naked beneath a thick woollen blanket that was hardly a typical medical room staple and the rough wool scratched against skin still sensitive from remembered burns. For a moment the memory of Gallifrey, of the closing Time Lock, almost dragged him back, but he forced his eyes open to the seamless curve of the walls and ceiling. He didn’t need to see to know where he was: he could feel the wary watchfulness of a TARDIS all around him and really that left only one possibility.

He turned his head toward the sense of another Time Lord, the only other Time Lord now. He’d changed again it seemed, but there was no mistaking him whatever face or form he wore. The Doctor was sprawled in what looked to be an incredibly uncomfortable chair, which in a TARDIS could only have been a deliberate choice. If it had been intended to stop him sleeping, however, it had clearly failed. There were dark shadows under the closed eyes and his skin was pale; the very fact that he didn’t stir at the Master’s waking bespoke an all-encompassing exhaustion.

Carefully the Master moved, stretching slowly and feeling every strain and bruise and scratch, yet it was still a vast improvement over his last recollection of consciousness. He glanced over at the Doctor, knowing who was responsible, as if there could be any doubt; no-one had the knowledge, let alone the inclination besides him. The Master stifled a small giggle at the idiocy of it all.

The Doctor slept on and the Master’s lips curved up in a smile. He reached out with one hand; the Doctor’s chair was close enough, just, that his hand hovered a mere breath from the Doctor’s long fingers and then he _reached_. He’d always had a talent for telepathy, even if his tutors had lamented his unorthodox approach, and he’d refined it well over the centuries. When he closed his eyes and focused, he could feel this new Doctor and oh the shape of him was so different now. Before, he had been a creature of bright, spiky colour, a veritable lightning storm of emotion, quick to strike, quick to subside and wholly unpredictable. It had been a shock to meet that Doctor after the Time War had ended; there had been the familiar sense of looking into a mirror, but this time the reflection had been closer to true than ever before. Their respective regenerations had achieved an unexpected synergy for the first time in centuries and together they could have risen to the greatest heights or self-destructed and torn the universe apart between them. The loss of that potential had been an unexpectedly sharp sting. 

Pushing away the thought, the Master regarded this new Doctor; he may have looked younger, but he felt like the ocean. There was a depth and a calmness to him, self-contained, but no less powerful for it, perhaps even more so. The Master rode the swell of the Doctor’s sleeping mind and oh, there was the potential he’d lost: something patient and dark lying just beneath the surface - old and sly and intriguing. The Master opened his eyes and resisted the urge to touch, to see what had brought that leviathan up from the depths; touching those memories would surely wake the Doctor, but it was oh so tempting.

He withdrew carefully and for a long moment marvelled at the silence of his own mind, but even as he listened echoes began to bounce up from the nothingness and he almost laughed out loud. He’d spent almost his whole life unable to escape those infernal drums and now that he finally had, he was so lost without them that his madness conjured up their echoes for comfort.

He pulled the blanket around himself a little more, but it didn’t warm him and did absolutely nothing to cover the gaping abyss in his mind. The Master looked back at the Doctor. Really, it was most inadvisable to be sleeping so close to him, however injured he may have been, it had never yet equated with helplessness. Had all their years taught the Doctor nothing, or perhaps it was simply a reminder that his determined optimism had survived even this. How annoying.

With slow motions that made every bone ache and every muscle protest like the aftermath of a regeneration, the Master slid from the medical couch, bracing himself against it briefly as verticality made the room spin. He dragged the blanket closer around himself and felt a tug on his hand. He looked down and pulled the saline drip free, dropping it petulantly onto the floor, then his eyes slid back to the Doctor’s sleeping form, like a compass finding due north.

He let the shape of the Doctor’s mind fill his own again, buttressing him against the emptiness and the lost drums, as his eyes took in the shape of the Doctor’s new physical form. The Doctor looked younger than he ever had since he had actually been that apparent age and it filled the Master with a sudden surge of glee for all the old memories and all the new possibilities inherent in it. He saw the pale, perfect skin and the long fingers draped limply along the chair arms and he smiled.

There was some rubber tubing on the side table, an unused drip perhaps, and he picked it up with a grin. It took only a single step to bring him close enough to the Doctor, but when he sank to his knees he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to get up again anytime soon. Irritated by the weakness, but unwilling to let it distract him from his plan, the Master carefully looped the tubing around the chair arm and the Doctor’s wrist, drawing it tight by slow degrees. If the Doctor woke now, it would spoil the whole game. The second wrist was more awkwardly placed, but he had experience and he was a genius after all. The Master giggled softly to himself and the Doctor stirred slightly.

The Master smirked in anticipation and shuffled a little closer between the Doctor’s sprawled legs. Such a gangly bastard he was now, even more than he had been last time, and he briefly wondered if the Doctor’s tendency towards tall regenerations had anything to do with his equally annoying propensity towards taking the moral high ground.

He watched closely as the Doctor’s eyes roved beneath their lids, his sense of the Master’s proximity working its way past the shroud of exhaustion. The Master laughed delightedly when those eyes suddenly flicked open and the Doctor’s mind instinctively wrapped itself in shields of hardest diamond. He laughed harder at the surprise and the sudden tension as the Doctor found he couldn’t move his hands, but then he watched the forcible relaxation and found himself bemused by a pair of calm eyes. Oh the Doctor had changed indeed and the Master wasn’t sure if it pleased him or disappointed him more. 

“Are you okay?” the Doctor asked. New voice too he noted, lower, still with that underlying, unconscious arrogance that all Time Lords owned, but with a tantalising hint of surety also. It was faintly familiar too, adding to his bemusement; he had a hazy recollection being gently shushed, something he’d clung to when all the world was pain.

Laughter bubbled up inside him again and the Master let it go, feeling the edges of something like hysteria as it rattled around his empty hearts. He wrapped his hand around the back of the Doctor’s neck, pulling him forward until their foreheads touched and no amount of shielding could ever block such intimate contact. He wondered if the Doctor could feel himself spiralling down into the emptiness at the core of him as well, and wouldn’t it be so good if they could go down together.

The Master’s breath shuddered from his lungs, schemes and plans boiling away to nothing at the simplicity of the idea. He tilted his head and seized the Doctor’s mouth even as he reached out with his mind and _in_.

The Doctor made a beautiful, choked sound and the Master swallowed it down, feeling the Doctor’s mental shields melt like ice at his touch. Oh, it should never have been this easy, hadn’t been even in the beginning. 

They had been taught all the rituals and ceremonies together as children on Gallifrey, all the prerequisites that should have preceded a courtship that itself had its rules and its time before an alliance could even be considered. Everything they had ever learned had said it should never be this simple, this instinctive. Bitter experience and need had done more than the first blush of love ever had. Then again, neither he nor the Doctor had ever been big on rules.

It had been so long since he’d twined himself with another. So _long_ since he’d allowed his mind to seek that primal, hardwired connection straight into the core of another Time Lord. Oh, he could touch humans the same way, but their fragile sanity couldn’t take it. It didn’t bother him overmuch, but the lack of an answering connection had hurt until it was easier not to bother trying and just to enjoy the physical. And for the Doctor, oh the Doctor with his pet humans, never letting himself touch them even that much, how very hungry he was. The Master could feel it all, they both could, all those woken instincts, feelings, needs… The Master ripped himself from the kiss with a gasp, but the connection remained strong and oh, it was so very, very good.

The Doctor’s eyes were dark, not the liquid depths he remembered, but something sharper and slyer. And wasn’t that an unexpected bonus. The Master seized another kiss, all teeth and tongues now, fighting almost more than kissing, and when he tasted blood it was like an epiphany. Better yet was when he felt the Doctor tense, Time Lord strength in rare evidence as he ripped one hand free of the chair and wrapped it around the back of the Master’s head, dragging him closer until he half-fell into the Doctor’s lap. And the Doctor was so warm, the heat of his body soaking into the Master and driving the chill ache from his bones.

The Master wrapped his hands around the Doctor’s hips pulling him closer and drove into the Doctor’s mind, feeling it close over and around him even as he felt the Doctor gasp and buck beneath his hands. Oh he’d always loved power; he’d destroyed galaxies, ruled planets, and killed with his bare hands alone, but nothing had ever compared to this.

He dragged his hands from the Doctor’s hips to his front, fumbling with the ridiculous earth clothing and hearing fabric tear as he opened the Doctor’s trousers. There was another layer beneath and he forced it down, seeking bare flesh and the raw heat of the Doctor’s skin. It wasn’t a plan, a scheme, or even a conscious thought that had him arching over, bending down and taking the already damp length into his mouth.

Need flared nova bright behind his eyes, ricocheting between them. He could feel a hand in his hair, long fingers threading through it with absurd gentleness and not a little possession. He took more in silent encouragement, tongue working in ways he had never forgotten. He heard a faint, high whine, but it was impossible to grin around the cock stretching his mouth wide. The Doctor asked for nothing, not ever, but he begged for this.

In his mind he could feel them still wrapped around each other, a spiralling vortex of need and hunger and want. The Master drew back and off, but before the Doctor could even draw breath to object, the Master had taken his mouth once more, tongue thrusting in crude mimicry. So good, so close that they didn’t need words as he felt the jerk of the chair beneath them as the Doctor ripped his other hand free, clasping them both to the Master’s face as he pressed forward, bearing the weight of unsteady legs and dubious balance as he all but lifted the Master to his feet and pressed him back against the couch. 

The heavy blanket slipped, baring one shoulder, even as the Doctor’s hands pushed it apart to reveal the Master’s much abused body. The scratches and bruises were evident, the wasted muscle even more so, but none of it registered to either of them as the Doctor curled one hand around the Master’s hip and crowded forward. His cock was a heated brand against the Master’s belly, but it was the sudden, unexpected thrust along their connection and into his mind that made the Master gasp, made him arch and clutch and demand as the Doctor just kept pushing, pressing in until that hollow core of lost echoes was drowned.

More, they needed more. His balance was shot, but between the couch and the Doctor’s body, the Master had enough support to lean back, draw up one leg and wrap it around the Doctor’s hip in unmistakable demand. Hunger flared and surged between them like a riptide, dragging their bodies in its wake, and the Master leaned back even as the Doctor moved forward. The Doctor widened his stance and braced himself to take a portion of the Master’s weight as he wrapped his legs around the Doctor’s waist, his hands clutching at the fabric of the Doctor’s jacket. No fumbling, no waiting, just pure, beautiful synchronicity as the Master opened his body to accept the invasion his mind had already welcomed. A moment’s burn, a moment’s concern, all washed away in a rush of heat and raw want. Movement was automatic and instinctual as their minds lost all semblance of coherence, writhing and coiling together, joining, splitting apart and rejoining, until all their disparate parts matched and they reached a single glorious oblivion.

The Master came back to himself to a warmth and comfort that was so rare as to be all but forgotten. He could feel long arms stretched around his back, holding him up and holding him close. He could feel the Doctor thinking too, but they were quiet thoughts, nothing that showed in his expression or could be sensed through the diamond of his psychic shielding. Even the tiredness that was the natural result of such exertion was strangely pleasurable and he spared a fleeting, disdainful thought for the Doctor’s pet humans, so fragile that their minds snapped and their bodies broke if they weren’t cosseted and prepared first. 

The Master rested his forehead against the Doctor’s chest, feeling bare skin and fabric that he had no recollection of ripping and snorted softly, amused in a strangely peaceful way. His mind was his own again, even that portion of it he’d shared with the Doctor given back so politely. The drums were still silent and he wondered how long it would be before it ceased surprising him. Perhaps the Doctor wasn’t the only one who had changed with the fall of Gallifrey.

The Master straightened a little; he no longer felt hollowed out and drowning in silence, just empty. He grinned, a half-stifled giggle escaping: it was a particularly well-used sort of empty. He hooked his heels around the back of the Doctor’s legs and tugged, just a little, enough to make the Doctor sway into him, enough to trigger a reflexive resistance and the shadow of suspicion swirled behind that diamond shield. The Master hid his grin and turned his head, pressing his ear to the bare skin of the Doctor’s narrow chest he listened to the drums.

FIN


End file.
